


i used to think it was the spark of creation

by Kindness



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Tommy is twenty-seven years old, but, as they take the freeway out of Hollywood, Alice still feels like she's leaving a part of herself behind.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	i used to think it was the spark of creation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).



[ ](http://somanyreasons.livejournal.com/13142.html)

Tommy is twenty-seven years old, but, as they take the freeway out of Hollywood, Alice still feels like she's leaving a part of herself behind.

Tom hasn't lived at home since he was eighteen. Mark hasn't, either, really. And she always thought that it would be nice to get some peace and quiet in the house, and stop worrying about Tom and Frank fighting, or Mark and Frank fighting, or Tom and Mark fighting (because they did, of course, when they were under the same roof) – but it turns out you never get to stop worrying.

Sometimes, Alice misses the things she used to worry about.

When she was pregnant with Tom (and she was younger then than Tommy is now; isn't it strange how that happens?) – she was afraid of what it'd be like when she wasn't. She'd rest her hand on her stomach while Frank read aloud from the paper, and she'd be afraid for the baby and all the things that might happen to it once it was out. And Frank would pause to lean in and call it by name – a different name each time, all the names they picked out as maybes that Alice can't remember anymore – and Tom-before-he-was-Tom would kick to the sound of his father's voice. And Alice would think, it's bigger (today than it was yesterday), and she'd shiver, and Frank would ask what was wrong. And she could never bring herself to tell him, she was just scared of how much it was going to hurt.

When Tom was five or six, there were kids at school who pushed him around at recess. They were bigger than him, and he was shy, and he wanted everyone to like him. And Alice could never understand how anyone _didn't_ love him, and she couldn't imagine that he wasn't the happy thing at school that he was at home, and he'd come through the door every afternoon with tear tracks on his cheeks and a note from the teacher. And he'd _beg_ her not to tell Dad.

Frank always guessed, anyway, when he came home for dinner. And he would say, son, you have to stand up for yourself! and Alice would say, _no_ , Tommy, you're going to conquer them with kindness – and eventually Tom made his own laughing way, without help from either of them, or maybe with a mix of help from both – but before that they had a hundred dinners where with all the best intentions they argued over what he should do, till Mark spilled and distracted them, and Tommy stared at his peas and pushed them into his mashed potatoes. And Alice would think, why doesn't anyone ever tell you? Giving birth is the easy part.

When Mark was four, he wanted to be a superhero.

When Tommy was thirteen, he got his heart broken for the first time.

When Mark was ten, he wanted to be an astronaut.

 _When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?_

 _Every dollar of it._

The thing you never realize, when your sons are small enough to take by the hand, or young enough to send to their room, or simple enough that all their problems are still problems you think you can solve, is they're going to grow up and go places you've never been. And even if it was what you wanted for them – and it was always what Alice wanted for her boys, once she realized what they wanted for themselves – it's vast and terrifying to think:

all the days of their lives are beyond me.

Tommy is twenty-seven years old, but trusting he knows where he's going? Sometimes it still feels a long way coming. Every day, Alice thinks, it ought to get easier – five years now since he left home, six years, seven – and maybe it does, but it's happening too slowly to be sure.

Tom is not the son Frank, standing so gravely by the turntable, thought he would have. Mark isn't, either, really. You never get the child you expected, or the child you imagined. You get a whole new complete, separate person, with a story you don't know the end to.

Alice never loves Frank more than when he's trying to read his sons'.


End file.
